S2 E3 - Why Customer Experience Strategy Should Be Iterative to Stay Relevant

In this episode of The B2B POD, host Radwa Hassan and guest Abdallah Saqqa discuss why customer experience strategy should be iterative to stay relevant. Abdallah explains that the core of any customer experience strategy is the building and maintenance of a well-supported plan, which must be continuously adapted to keep up with changes in the market and the evolving needs of customers. Without an iterative design process, companies can quickly fall behind their competitors and lose control of their customer base. They highlight companies like Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Amazon as examples of businesses that excel in customer experience strategy and stress the importance of proper ownership from within the company to stay ahead in the game.

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Podcast Description:

The B2B POD is the finest resource for knowledge on anything pertaining to the B2B sector. The podcast aims at providing topical and dynamic content, making it a vital tool for entrepreneurs to stay updated. Listen in as our season's host Radwa Hassan, brings together a variety of guests each week to discuss the relevant challenges of the industry.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Radwa: Hello and welcome everyone to a new episode by the B2B Pod I, the pulse of Dubai. We have a very special guest for our episode, Abdallah Saqqa, and we have a very interesting, uh, title and topic that we're discussing today is why customer experience strategy should be iterative to stay relevant.

[00:00:30] Intro: Welcome to the B2B Pod by the Pulse Of Dubai, with your host, Radwa Hassan.

A podcast that touches upon everything that's going on in and around the B2B industry.

Radwa: Abdallah is the head of SAP Customer Experience Sales in Middle East in North Africa region and has overall responsibility of the customer experience line of business across all solution pillars of sales service.

[00:01:00] Marketing commerce within MENA. His main focus is around supporting their customer growth strategies and digital transformation objectives, utilising SAP innovative solutions in the cloud, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and all aspects of the transformation journey.

It's a very impressive experience that we're bringing for this special episode. 

[00:01:30] Abdallah previously held, Multiple regional manners positions, advanced micro devices, Microsoft Corp and Accenture. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and a minor degree in banking and finance from Ymo University in Jordan.

Welcome Abdallah to our episode and really our pleasure to host you today.

Abdallah: Thank you Radwa. Pleasure to be here and definitely excited to be with you, um, on this podcast and looking forward for, uh, an informative, uh, one in Charlotte to our listeners.

Radwa: We have a very interesting title and topic that we're discussing today is why customer experience strategy should be iterative to stay relevant? 

[00:02:00] The higher the complexity of the business you're running, the more thorough and more strategic your customer experience plan should be the way you govern your customer experience plan and the way you apply your maintenance, because customer experience evolves alongside what you have built in terms of the strategy.

[00:02:30] So perhaps you have planned it for two to three years ago in line with what your competition was doing. And because we live in times of incredible change, and as you see with other aspects of life, even for customer experience companies, they need to cope with the rapid change. And that's really foundational to our discussion today.

The, the two sides of building the strategy, following through what are the gaps or the areas that the strategy falls behind. 

[00:03:00] That brings me to ask, um, our guest, what, what is your, your view on the topic and the challenge that some organisations go through?

Abdallah: Thank you, Radwa. That's a very, um, good question to start with, because I see it as really the core building.

The strategy is the core of, um, any customer experience, uh, planning or, uh, strategy to be put forward or put in place for any company. 

[00:03:30] That core has to be well supported and maintained for it to be sustainable. And what tends really to happen from my experience, from my discussions with a lot of customers and so on. There's a huge, uh, level of attention at the beginning.

Once the, um, technology is implemented, uh, the customer basically goes live, they tend to kind of cool down and start operating with what they have. 

[00:04:00] Neglecting the long-term aspect of, uh, things, especially in that space, which, um, where things evolve and change a lot of competition is moving ahead. And you find yourself in a short period of time, uh, kind of literally outdated, your customers are complaining of certain features being missed for certain services, certain loyalty aspects, you, they start comparing you to other players in the market or in the field, and you realize your, uh, you're losing control.

[00:04:30] Radwa: Mm-hmm.

Abdallah: And that brings the iterative design that you mentioned, how important and critical that is. And this is really the, the long term future. Looking view of your strategy, how you can continue to build this aspect of the strategy in an evolving manner. 

[00:05:00] How you can reach to a point where you can start knowing your business, start predicting what your customer may, uh, end up needing six months down the road or a year down the road, et cetera.

That's one aspect of the topic that is really critical and makes. Or forms, uh, some sort of, uh, big differentiation between you and other players in the field. 

[00:05:30] We do have a lot of examples in the market I always like to use. Um, quite honestly, I don't know if I should use names, but, uh, um, I'll, I'll, I'll just go ahead and use it.

Like if you look at Emirates Airlines, for example, when it comes to aviations or airline industry, They're way ahead than others, right? Yeah. When it comes to customer experience, when it comes to customer loyalty and so on. Over the past years as well, Qatar Airlines was evolved and they started putting a lot of attention to customer experience, their loyalty programs and so on.

[00:06:00] If you look at other fields as well, or other industries, you'll find a lot of examples. We spoke earlier, you and I, about the, uh, online shopping, uh, et cetera. Amazon stands out the end-to-end type of, you know, quality of services after sale support. Uh, The way they attend to their customers, to their customer complaints, et cetera, is incredible.

Simply unmatched, right? So,

Radwa: Yep.

Abdallah: The, the bar is really high in that space. 

[00:06:30] And if you, back to your question and to the main point, if you do not have the proper iterative design process and means in place, you will very soon find yourself, um, out of the race. As simple as this, right? Uh, this is not a momentum success.

This is not something you can be complacent about in a short period of time because competition is very high. 

[00:07:00] Consumers are very, very empowered, and they, uh, their empowerment just goes higher and higher every day. You need to be prepared, you need to be equipped, and you need to have the proper ownership from within the company to run the show.

On this particular track because it needs somebody who speaks the language, the business language, the consumer language, not somebody who understands how to resolve the most complex IT issue in the backend.

Radwa: Yeah, certainly. And to understand what, what does, what's the definition of customer experience in relation to

Abdallah: [00:07:30] Absolutely.

Radwa: To a certain brand and the identity and the service that they're offering. And I, and I would also just reflect on our. Um, the, the example that we discussed, uh, about toys are us, so this is a very good example of losing sight of how the customer experience exactly is advancing with the, uh, being online or moving out of that brick and mortar model, uh, to a different model.

Now, I will say, for example, in my household, my kids just go to Amazon to shop for their toys Now, Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:00] And for everything else, of course, but even they go first. They check the reviews and they're empowered as a customer. So if a brand cannot really connect with all the different generations and the different buyers that they I agree.

Talk to.

Abdallah: I agree. I think I, yeah.

Radwa: So, uh, we talked about the, the black hole that some organisations really fall into when it comes to the, to the strategy, to the customer experience, and to being consistent with their execution. 

[00:08:30] My question would be about why does this happen? Really what brings the complacency and the lack of consistency, and how can they avoid it?

Abdallah: Well, in my experience, to be honest, and this is like from my uh, uh, real life experiences, working with a lot of customers in different fields, different industries, et cetera, what really empowers complacency as the short term good results. 

[00:09:00] Lot of, you know, customers, unfortunately, they get fooled by this.

And, you know, they, uh, kind of, it, it shuts their view on the long term aspect of, of the whole, the whole situation or the whole, uh, business, the way it works, et cetera.

[00:09:30] And the moment that happens, that's like really the, um, uh, an extremely critical and dangerous. Uh, thing to kick in because it kind of slows down your efforts to cover the sustainable aspect of your business, how you grow.

Uh, your customer experience, how you keep modifying it, how you keep redesigning it to be able to cope with the competitive landscape, with the new evolving requirements, with the, you know, more empowerment happening on the customer side, et cetera. 

[00:10:00] That is really something that I always attribute to, uh, when it comes to the black hole, um, scenario.

Another aspect, or another reason would be, from again, um, something that I witnessed myself, the ownership of, of this line of business within, uh, certain companies, uh, is not being handed over to, uh, the right people, business people, um, who understand what it takes to reach to a leadership position in customer experience and sustain that leadership position.

[00:10:30] Cuz as they always say, sometimes reaching the top is easy, but staying there is very difficult, right? And really it applies here. Um, you could invest massively on having state-of-the-art technology, uh, powered by state-of-the-art strategy, et cetera. But then what's next? Because this is good for you, probably for a year.

Or two.

Radwa: Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:00] Abdallah: Definitely shorter than that. But let's take it for a year or two. But then what's next? Uh, you need to have the proper. Research as to what would be our next move, what would be our next plan on customer experience? How can we predict what our customers are looking for or going to look for during the next generation of, you know, product solutions, whatever you are selling or servicing customers with, and so on.

[00:11:30] So that's another area or point to keep an eye on. And of course the black hole could be. By the lack of visibility of what's going on around or what's your brand, your services, your products are being talked about around social media, which is basically the reviews.

Radwa: Yes,

Abdallah: That is an incredibly powerful tool which end user can, you know, hold against you by writing a turbo review based on a turbo experience while you are unaware of it.

[00:12:00] Or completely absent, uh, from being able to track what's, what's happening, um, what, uh, social media is talking about when it comes to your brand or products or services, et cetera. So in my view, these three play a critical role in terms of avoiding the black hole.

Radwa: Yeah, I, I, I can't agree more and I really, uh, believe with this.

With the, with, with all the change that is so rapid that it's 

[00:12:30] breathtaking to many organizations, it's really hard. Like the big skill is just keeping that, keeping up with that high speed and the momentum. Sometimes it's not easy, but again, you can't stay at the top if you're not really offering the, the best service, uh, in an industry.

Abdallah: One of the things, Radwa, that I need to mention here on this particular very point is, uh, which, which is very critical in my view and and could really help 

[00:13:00] companies reach there, which is the boundaries of the black hole, is board level visibility of what we're doing on CX as a company. Hmm. And that is one of the aspects which is it's not written in stones, it's not in the Bible.

It's not the rule. However, I always get asked these questions in so many situations by sea level, like where do you think the head of CX should report into? 

[00:13:30] Hmm. And in my view, I always give this strong advice. It'll be a waste of investment if this person or this line of business reports into another.

Line of business such as, for example, part of marketing or part of sales, or part of X, Y, Z, it has to go to the board, either directly to the CEO or creating a CX steering committee, which somehow reports to the board because they need to track. 

[00:14:00] To have the 360 view internally and externally. Remember one incident or example that I mentioned to you.

I am the head of sales for an online retailer. I'm doing an amazing job by putting the most relevant campaigns, promotions, bundles, you name it. My colleague is the CMO of this company and he's doing an incredible job. Putting together the most relevant campaigns and driving traffic, uh, reaching the right audience and so on.

[00:14:30] Right?

Radwa: Yeah.

Abdallah: Now we achieved an amazing combined proposition by bringing the right audience and offering the right bundle or product right at the right price. Now mm-hmm. We receive tons of orders. To an extent we are on, we are unable to fulfill with our current stock. We have to order more, which is great.

[00:15:00] Now, fast forward three, four days down the road, we start receiving terrible feedback on the social media channels or handles or whatever. Why? Because our colleague heading deliveries, supply chains, you name it, messed up all deliveries.

Radwa: Yeah. So yeah, that's

Abdallah: What happened to our efforts? Gone to waste.

Radwa: Yes.

Abdallah: And we have now to create a new task force to satisfy those users and make sure they update their comments or reviews in a positive manner. 

[00:15:30] Otherwise gone with the wind. Right. Definitely. So, definitely.

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Radwa: I just can't hope to remember this experience that I had with a shipping company, and in fact, the shipping company was delivering to me a card from a bank. 

[00:16:00] Mm-hmm. For an amazing product that they have for the youth. So I was so excited and happy with that product that I'm getting the card for my kids and, and, and everything was, was beautiful until I just like bumped into that shipping company.

I was so many complaints and calls that I did to the company. I ended up. Accidentally, to their bad luck that I found the mobile number of the CEO. Mm-hmm. And I couldn't believe at the beginning that this is really the CEO. I called a guy and he picked up. 

[00:16:30] And he resolved the problem, of course in just one hour.

But the problem is that why do I need to reach to that exactly I up to resolve a problem? That is very simple because as we discussed, and you have mentioned a, a very, very valid point, like the call center agents in many cases are not empowered to resolve the problem. Mm-hmm.

Abdallah: Very true.

Radwa: Which again, goes back to what we discussed at Amazon as an example,

[00:17:00] can resolve through customer care or the call center agents, or even through email. Most of the problems can be resolved easily. It's not a complex problem, but you feel that they're empowered, they know exactly the steps to resolve the different issues they have scenarios. So when you try to train your team to have the best customer experience, you need to teach them also what does the best customer experience look like?

[00:17:30] Abdallah: Exactly

Radwa: how satisfied customer looks like.

Abdallah: This comes Radwa exactly under building while building the strategy, because part of the strategy which we have in detail, however, when I go through this in more details, part of it, you have to bring all business heads from your organisation and align with each of them what a successful customer experience should look like to you and to your team.

Radwa: Yeah.

Abdallah: Based on certain KPIs, right? That's part of the strategy. Which is the core, so I totally agree with you.

[00:18:00] Radwa: Which by the way, sometimes is very beautiful on paper, and that's back to our big topic. It's very nice as part of the strategy, but when it comes to execution, you don't relay it very well to the teams and you don't do the enablement to make them understand what this strategy, what's in it for them.

Why? If I have a, a satisfied customer, I, I should be motivated by that.

[00:18:30] Abdallah: Um,

Radwa: And what they, yeah.

Abdallah: So Radwa, on this particular point, I have a very relevant comment. Part of the strategy as well is to form governance and compliance, governance and discipline across internal team members, because, as you said, to avoid being in situation that this is nice on PowerPoint slides, but is it being followed?

Are we looking after our customers the way the book says, or the way we designed our strategy? 

[00:19:00] We have to do this consistently in order to make sure the internal teams are following the rules, that really what make a company stands out versus a company who does it perfectly on PowerPoint, but when it comes to execution, nobody does the proper follow up.

That's a huge aspect of while building the strategy, governance, and discipline.

[00:19:30] Radwa: Yeah. Uh, this of course is just with everything but even more with organisations that they lose money in building a strategy. They lose more in falling, failing to execute on.

Abdallah: Totally agree.

Radwa: So that also will bring me to ask you, you have seen lots of examples.

Of good and bad customer experience. What comes to your mind if we say so? We've mentioned as a good example, and we don't really need to mention names, but the, the bad customer experience or organisations that have failed to really create that customer experience. 

[00:20:00] Maybe they failed and they have fixed it through, following through the right, the right steps.

Do you have any examples that you can.

Abdallah: Well,

Radwa: You wish to bring,

Abdallah: I, I, I think I have a better example on this particular one to give you an idea of a company who made an incredible use of iterative design in the long term. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and, and I'm gonna have to mention this cuz I love this company basically.

[00:20:30] I love them because, Not only do they have great products, but they do have incredible customer experience, which is called Lululemon. Okay? Yeah. So this company Radwa is, um, they're in the, um, fashion retail, and they do have, uh, big part of their, uh, products, uh, focuses on sports, retail, right?

Radwa: Mm-hmm.

Abdallah: Uh, sports fashion, retail.

And they've been doing really well. And I think the, the brand here is becoming more and more familiar in the region as well, cuz I think it's a Canadian company.

Radwa: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:00] Abdallah: Now what happened over the past couple of years, basically the guys have been doing extremely well in their line of business, which is, um, fashion retail.

And they do have a clear mission of making people look great right now. They could have continued on the same line and said, you know, we're doing well. Our numbers are good, we're selling good customers happily, et cetera. Nonetheless, part of their projections for how things will look like down the road, like two years, three years, et cetera, they said, and, and in support to their um, uh, mission of making people look great.

[00:21:30] They did an acquisition for a tech startup called Mirror. Okay.

Radwa: Hmm.

Abdallah: What those guys do mirror actually, they create, uh, smart mirrors where you can place at home and it gives you the ability to, uh, do exercises at home. And it gives you certain analytics about your health, your, uh, sports, your moves, and gives you certain programs without programs to exercise.

[00:22:00] Without the need to go to the gym or to have equipment.

Radwa: Yeah.

Abdallah: Okay. And they said, this is really part of our big mission of, of, uh, of making people look good. Now, a lot of people kind of looked at this and said, well, why do they have to do that? They're com they, they've completely changed their line.

In reality, if you look at it. No, they haven't changed their line because, They're, they're supporting the cause. The main purpose, the more objective, which is making, look, people look good. 

[00:22:30] They're actually empowering you to look great if you follow this and so on. So Incre, imagine the increase in loyalty for their customers.

They created as well the Lulu community, whereby they share with their customers a lot of programs, uh, invitations sometimes for group classes of yoga or certain, you know, workouts, et cetera. So the value is there. They have actually, what they have done through this, they have turned their loyalty into partnership for life.

[00:23:00] Radwa: Absolutely because you see that the brand cares about you. They have built a community or there's something and they're helping you to use it.

Abdallah: So absolutely.

Radwa: It's, it's not commercial only.

Abdallah: And, and, and that, that, what I call extremely creative irate of design for, um, uh, customer experience strategy or a plan a company puts in place to

[00:23:30] continue to acquire more and more customers knowing their customers are really in love with them. They're using their products, they're using the services, and they are interacting with them in a way that could not be even better. Right? So that's extremely smart. Now put this in comparison to a company who is spending their times in resolving daily issues with their customers.

Yeah, it may take a day or two, but they're busy resolving their, uh, their daily issues. There.  

[00:24:00] There will come a stage where their customers will get bored because they're always, there's always an issue with this, uh, brand. Right?

Radwa: Yeah.

Abdallah: But, but what are, you have in store or in the kitchen for next year, you're gonna continue to fire, fight the daily issues.

What's next for you? You see the difference?

Radwa: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, someone is focused on innovation and how to be closer to their client and make the best out of your experience, and others are trying to close the, the, the leaks and to just try to fix the issues so you'll never be focused on the innovation.

[00:24:30] It's a broken system that really needs to be fixed altogether.

Abdallah: Exactly.

Radwa: This is, this is really amazing and. If we look at your recommendations for companies really want to build, and I, 

[00:25:00] I, and I know that you have mentioned a lot of tips and tricks and, and, uh, insights around the customer experience and the strategy, but if we wrap it up with a few points that you believe the CEOs, those who are in the driver's seat, need to look at and to really focus on these are the fundamental points, what would be

[00:25:30] Abdallah: Well, I can, you know, put uh, kind of like, uh, three to four bullet points to be focused upon, quite honestly, for any company who are, who is basically planning to step into this and, and make success or make a difference, which is basically, um, Start with the core, that's very important, which is the strategy and what will support this strategy to be sustainable.

Yes. That is the iterative design proper technology, the um, the goals and governance and discipline. 

[00:26:00] That's very important. That's really very important. And that's the core, right? The strategy and the associated points that I mentioned. Now cascading. The objectives and what success means for each team within the organization on CX, on customer experience is very important.

Radwa: Hmm.

Abdallah: Because like, like we discussed earlier, ard, the CX KPIs, uh, success on CX KPIs or CX KPIs for marketing is different than sales, different than logistics, different than deliveries and so on, right? Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:30] Each team needs to be aware of what their KPIs are and how to make sure they are delivering on them.

That's very important.

Radwa: Yeah. Yeah.

Abdallah: Third point board room visibility on how CX is performing. That's very important. CX should not be or should not belong to any other line of business or function. 

[00:27:00] That's very critical in my view, and makes a difference.

Radwa: Yeah. Um, sorry, if I just ask you here question, do you believe a CEO would need to have their own system to track this?

Uh, irrespective of the type of reports that they get directly? So for them to, to look at the reviews or to see how customer experience is performing without being handed reports. So to have that sort of, Audit, if you may.

[00:27:30] Abdallah: So what happens? What? What happens, and this is becoming the norm Radwa, is that the head of CX or the chief customer officer develops a dashboard that is CEO friendly.

Radwa: Mm-hmm.

Abdallah: And he would agree with the CEO on certain KPIs to report. Depending on the business or the industry, it differs, right? Mm-hmm. So I am the CEO of an airline. I would be interested in Certaining KPIs other than the CEO of a retail or other than the CEO of an automotive company and so on.

[00:28:00] Radwa: Yeah.

Abdallah: So we would agree. The CEO will tell them, guys, I am interested in the following KPIs. Show me a graphical dashboard. That indicates where or how we're performing on each kpi. I want this every morning or every week, depending on the business. Yeah. And then if he sees one aspect or one KPI in the red, he needs to investigate that.

[00:28:30] That's very important.

Radwa: Yeah.

Abdallah: Does, does this answer the question?

Radwa: Absolutely, yes it does. Okay. And, uh, I think that's really what should be applied every, everywhere where they need to focus on the customer experience. Okay. And your other points. Um,

Abdallah: The other point is don't worry about technology, design everything and then work on the technology backwardly, because some customers, and I've seen that in my own eyes and in in my own experience as well, what they do, they decide the technology, right, and then they start building the strategy should be the other way around.

[00:29:00] Again, every business is different. Every industry is different. There are common things. Yes. However, design your strategy, your objective, your goals, agree on everything internally, and then work backward towards what technology will support this strategy and make it alive.

[00:29:30] Radwa: Certainly,

Abdallah: This would be my summary. This would be my summary points.

Radwa: That's, that's really insightful and I, I think it touches on all the different points. That. Any organisation that needs to up their game with a customer experience, with a strategy, and from building the strategy to following through need to really focus on. So working on your customer experience strategy first, then choosing the technology.

[00:30:00] To support you and technology changes all the time and it's even going to change more. We're gonna be disrupted a lot by AI and we didn't touch on that, but this is a very, uh, key aspect. Maybe we can talk about that in a different episode because

Abdallah: Yeah,

Radwa: This is very important to lots of businesses and it's going to be very disruptive to many business lines.

But it's about building the culture, having a culture that is truly customer-centric. 

[00:30:30] So when you say we're customer-centric, act on that and be really customer-centric. Don't tell the customer we focus on you, but then when it comes to practice, you just leave the customer frustrated. For so many calls trying to fix and resolve a problem.

So, um, for all our listeners, thank you so much for listening. We hope that this episode is very useful and insightful to you, uh, with all the takeaways that have been mentioned, but by our guest, Abdallah Saqqa. 

[00:31:00] Thank you so much, Abdallah. Really a pleasure to have you with us in the podcast.

Abdallah: Thank you very much, Radwa. I enjoyed the discussion and definitely looking forward for, uh, more opportunities to, uh, to talk about something else.

Radwa: Thank you so much and please share your comments and any questions that you may have. We'll be, uh, happy to answer them and stay tuned for more. Thank you.

[00:31:30] Abdullah: Thank you.

Closing: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the B2B Pod by the pulse of Dubai with your host Radwa Hassan.

This show was brought to you by Logichron. If you aren't already, make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Google, or Apple podcast. If you have any questions or suggestions, you can visit us on the podcast.ae and follow us on social media. At the B2B pod. See you next time.[00:32:00]